Some existing energy management systems can be used to control operations of vehicle systems during a trip to “optimize” performance of the vehicle systems. For example, Trip Optimizer™ provided by General Electric Company can be used to automatically control or direct an operator to control throttles of locomotives in a rail vehicle system to assist in keeping the rail vehicle systems on schedule while reducing fuel consumption and/or emission generation (relative to operating the locomotives without using Trip Optimizer™). These types of energy management systems can take into account factors such as length of the rail vehicle system, weight of the rail vehicle system, grade of the route being traveled upon, conditions of the route, weather conditions, and performance characteristics of the vehicles. The energy management systems create trip profiles or trip plans that reduce braking and can reduce the fuel consumed and/or emissions generated.
During travel according to a trip plan, various factors may cause the vehicle system to be unable to continue traveling according to the trip plan. For example, deteriorating health of a propulsion-generating vehicle in the vehicle system, damage to the vehicle system, damage to a route being traveled upon, adverse weather conditions, operator action (e.g., manual control) of the vehicle system, or the like, can cause the vehicle system to fall behind or otherwise be unable to follow the trip plan.
Some known systems and methods can “re-plan” the trip plan by revising the trip plan to account for the vehicle system falling behind the prior trip plan. But, these re-plans may generate a transitional plan that causes operations of the vehicle system to rapidly increase to return to operating according to the prior trip plan. Or, these re-plans can create new trip plans that begin with operational settings that are significantly different from the prior trip plan. As a result, the vehicle system may need to rapidly increase output in order to attempt to travel according to the revised trip plan. Either of these scenarios can cause the vehicle systems to significantly increase the amount of fuel consumed and/or emissions generated, in contradiction to the goals sought to be achieved by the trip plans.